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 Mar 2015 Eliana
Jedd Ong
Dear Sarah,

I think I got lost a bit there in the patterns of your dress - stars splattering over the hems of your skirt like a never-ending physics class.

You ever studied the constellations? Because speaking of, I think I've gotten lost too in the way your voice sounds like a nebula cracking open. Your eyes travel at speeds laced with infinite decimal points, each glint and blink slowly chasing down light particles - which is to say I cannot seem to grasp how flustered I really am by you and how your poems always seem to leave my lungs screaming for more air.

Staring at your face makes me feel like I'm trapped in a vacuum.
Project Voice. Sarah Kay. They made me write a letter. Hate the fact that I didn't get to read it. Well more of relieved.
 Feb 2015 Eliana
Sarah Spang
Time and risk caught up to you;
Gagged you into silence.
Chasing down the dragon was
Your favorite form of violence.

I saw its markings on your skin;
The gauntness of your eyes
Your searching fingers scratching down
To truth, as you breathed lies

China white won this round, love
You thought you'd always dance
The dragon chose another one
And turned its gaze askance.
http://www.gofundme.com/Sarahquil
Toss a penny my way
 May 2014 Eliana
Mikaila
You say
Get angry.
Well
If I get angrier
It will poison me.
Too loud,
Too much,
Too needy,
Too fragile,
Too raw.
Be quiet,
Be better,
Be reasonable,
Be mature,
Be gracious,
Be
Sorry.
I am so angry that tears do no good.
I am so angry that violence
Does no good.
I am so angry that lungs
Do no good.
If I were to cry enough to match the heat of my rage
I would boil.
If I were to hit as hard as I hurt
I would crack open the earth and crawl inside
Tear out its heart and swallow it
And the pressure of my fury would press it into a pebble.
If I were to scream loud enough to dull my thoughts
The glass would blow out in stabbing shards
From every window and revolving door
And melt in molten pools into the soil.
This body
Is not durable enough
For this soul.
I know it. I have seen.
It is like living in a china doll.
I can break it just by breathing.
How is it that somebody can speak
And a rib snaps?
A decision made
And blood wells?
I am sick
And I cannot tell if my disease is my mind
Or my stupid,
Listless,
Hopelessly inadequate casing.
I burn through it like acid,
And it suffers and complains
And I have grown so **** tired of hearing its
Aches and pains,
Its needs,
Its failings and betrayals.
I have been cruel to it and it has been cruel to me
For we are a poor match
But we are all there is
And all there has ever been
And I beg it to work with me
And it begs me to be different
Just like everybody else does
Just like I
Beg me to be different.
But I'm not.
I am this
And I can't help but think that maybe there is a chance
That I can expand
That I can reach out through these eyes
And touch something.
The world is so delightfully raw
And I can't tell
When I reach for it
If it recoils
Or if I do.
You have told me to be angry.
Has it ever occurred to you
That my vulnerability was learned?
That my weakness was imposed?
That my kindness only exists
Because of how horribly
Horribly angry I am?
If I could emerge from this...thing
I would touch the ground and level every city for a hundred miles
If I could be what I am
I would destroy everything I looked upon
Not through any malice
But through simple release
Because it is my nature, my way.
Earthquakes are not good or evil.
Fire, lightning. They do not discriminate.
They only touch
And things happen.
I could touch
And things would happen.
This body is my restraining order.
My reminder to control myself
My rebuke for my craving to be vast
My constant and insincere apology.
This body and I,
We don't hate one another,
We are just opposites. We are just two things
That destroy each other.
It is so fragile and light
And I watch from inside
Snarling
I watch and people pity me
People abuse me
People underestimate me
People
Force
Me.
I quietly let them condemn me for the covering I wear
Because I know nothing else.
It is an agony, to never be seen.
It is a punishment I have been searching for reasons for.
And yet when the light has touched me, and I have been truth
Whenever I have been witnessed in full
I have been loathed with such vitriolic venom that
My poor little shell quaked
Pale and skittering
My small white hands fluttered like moths immolating themselves in the flames of my heart
Too foolish or too mad
To resist their craving for warmth even when it turns them to ash.
You try it
You try
Taking a risk
When you know that your nine lives are down to one
You try flying
When you've got moth wings and the breath of a phoenix.
There is something
Burning
In here
And I've never wanted anything more than to show it to the world
Except to live
Except to continue
And so I hesitate.
You tell me to be angry.
You don't know what you are speaking to.
I have worn this body not like armor but like glass
And it has carried me like a ticking time bomb
But if I know one thing
And honestly
Just now
I only do
If I know one thing
It is that, like the sun,
Even if I am scalding hot with chaos and held together by fear
Even if I am, after all, untouchable
I will always rise.
Title is a quote from Andrea Gibson's poem "I Sing The Body Electric, Especially When My Power Is Out"
 May 2014 Eliana
Elijah Corbeau
What would you say to me
If I told you that all things
have a name?

A name, created forever ago-
A name singular, secret and sacred-
A name that grants form?

What if I told you
that if you cried out
The Name of the Moon,

You could bathe at mid-day
under its dappled, failing shine-
playing partner to its light?

That if you called to the skies
you could surround yourself
with a span of azure infinity,

Paint sun-songs with hidden words,
Or caress cloud-worn creations while
floating in blue nothingness?

To think; You could merely utter
The Name of Oceans - That
vast implication; You could

Summon distant, breaking shores
for your own inspection and approval-
To satisfy the simplest curiosity?

Would you say it was a fantasy?
Something grand to ponder;
And then regretfully forget?

That to strum the chords of creation
with key-words and mere intentions,
Is a blasphemy?

But what if... What if
I spoke to you the Name of Love,
As soft as daylight-sighs ending?

Would you scoff at my audacity,
To arrogantly manipulate its meaning
by not letting it go free?

Or would you realize, and see-
That despite all that power, I can't find
the name for what you mean to me?
Love, Rothfuss Style. (The Name of the Wind)
 May 2014 Eliana
Pea
It begins when a
butterfly dies. My stomach
is an insect grave.
Being that I am not a morning person,
I acquire a tall glass of water,
I draw a warm/hot bath,
and pour myself a nice glass of red wine;

under those circumstances,
with all things considered,
mornings can be made to be
not so bad.
If drinking before noon is a sin,
I'll send you a postcard from hell.
 May 2014 Eliana
Schanzé
He filled my days with midnight
and my midnights with summer.
 May 2014 Eliana
marina
it is summer again, and
we are getting high underneath
the tanglewood bridge

our shoulders stick together
with sweat, one of us coughing,
inexperienced, the other
laughing

it is summer again, and
i don't remember a day when i
didn't want to spend
all my time with
you
idk this is just a thought more than a poem
 May 2014 Eliana
Yoni Sav
אנשים צעירים
זקופים ויפים
למלחמה יוצאים

אנשים צעירים
כפופים ושחוקים
נלחמים ונופלים

אנשים צעירים
שוכבים ונחים
מנוחת עולמים
This one is hebrew. For Yom Hazikaron.
 Apr 2014 Eliana
Aubree Champagne
When you laugh, loneliness
falls out like sunshine
dripping through tree limbs,
a world beyond our school.

For now our only world revolves
around our insecurities, my compulsion,
the emotions churning through your veins.
You rip yourself apart because you're terrified

of losing instability, fully functioning adults laugh
with a content emptiness, there is nothing
in their veins but blood.  Does craving

loneliness make you ****** up, or more
cultured?  Does not being perfect
make you normal

or the loneliest piece of art there is?
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